At a Glance: 5 New Titles at Gottesman Libraries

With Gottesman Libraries’ Patron-Driven Acquisitions program, Teachers College community members contribute to circulating collections by submitting requests for new resources. These resources help build our collection, keep our digital and physical shelves fresh, and offer library collections as a service. 

New book requests can be submitted by current TC students, faculty, and staff. We prioritize digital material whenever possible, with print material typically arriving in 2-3 weeks. Learn more about requesting library resources here, and feel free to submit a new book request here. 

Please find 5 new books acquired through our Patron-Driven Acquisitions program below. Questions? Contact us at librarysupport@tc.columbia.edu.

Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe

Told through a series of 248 notes, this volume explores profound questions about loss and the shapes of Black life that emerge in the wake of it, touching upon such themes as language, beauty, memory, history and literature.

Visual Methods for Social Justice in Education by Laura Azzarito

This book makes a case for the usefulness of visual research methods for advancing a social justice agenda in education. The author aims to provide education researchers with a wide range of qualitative visual research tools to invoke different stories, voices, embodiments, and experiences of individuals from marginalized communities; to advance emancipatory research projects; to embrace interdisciplinary knowledge-building; and to counter-narrate Western forms of knowledge, cultures, and values for the reimagining of education for social change. It draws attention to the importance of visual methods in today’s neoliberal landscape of education to speak back to mainstream research and practices, especially when research participants lack words to describe, express, and represent what it means to be impacted by oppression and marginalization. Laura Azzarito is Professor of Physical Culture and Education and Co-Director of the Visual Research Center for Education, Art, & Social Change (VRC) at Teachers College, Columbia University, USA. Her scholarly work is situated at the intersection of socio-educational and critical theory and practice, and uses creative visual methodologies to explore youth embodiment with a focus on the intersectionality of gender/sex, social class, race, (dis)ability from constructivist, CRT, postcolonial, post-feminist, and trans theories.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Education edited by Kathryn Ann Hytten

This edited collection provides a comprehensive, global, invitational, and accessible overview of contemporary issues in the field of philosophy of education. It includes a wide range of topics, ideas, and diverse perspectives from around the world. Each chapter is an in-depth exploration of a philosophic topic or issue relevant to teaching, education, pedagogy, and/or schooling. Authors include well-known and emerging scholars who write in invitational ways to a non-specialist audience. Taken together, the chapter authors illuminate the kinds of questions that philosophers ask about education and schooling, and the tools and resources they bring to bear on these questions. They show the ways in which educational philosophers uncover fundamental assumptions, describe relationships among ideas, analyze concepts, unpack taken-for-granted claims, connect disparate viewpoints, identify the validity and consistency of claims, unsettle commonsense, propose hypothetical experiments, provide critical commentary on ideas, render givens as contingent, explore the interactions of ideas and experience, and offer alternative possibilities.

Ableism in Education: Rethinking School Practices and Policies by Gillian Parekh

How we organize children by ability in schools is often rooted in ableism. Ability is so central to schooling-where we explicitly and continuously shape, assess, measure, and report on students' abilities-that ability-based decisions often appear logical and natural. However, how schools respond to ability results in very real, lifelong social and economic consequences. Special education and academic streaming (or tracking) are two of the most prominent ability-based strategies public schools use to organize student learning. Both have had a long and complicated relationship with gender, race, and class. In this down-to-earth guide, Dr. Gillian Parekh unpacks the realities of how ability and disability play out within schooling, including insights from students, teachers, and administrators about the barriers faced by students on the basis of ability. From the challenges with ability testing to gifted programs to the disability rights movement, Parekh shows how ableism is inextricably linked to other forms of bias. Her book is a powerful tool for educators committed to justice-seeking practices in schools.

The Positivity Effect: Simple CBT Skills to Transform Anxiety and Negativity into Optimism and Hope by Dan Tomasulo

Not being anxious is not the same as thriving! Based in cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and positive psychology, psychologist Dan Tomasulo--author of the self-help hit Learned Hopefulness--offers readers powerful skills to shift negative thinking and harness the power of positivity to find instant calm and sustainable peace of mind.

Image: Reading, Knowledge, Books, by Mohamed Hassan